


Negatives

by lunarlychallenged



Category: Dear Evan Hansen - Pasek & Paul/Levenson
Genre: I just really love Jared, I would marry him, he's awful
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-22
Updated: 2018-05-22
Packaged: 2019-05-10 00:12:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14726268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lunarlychallenged/pseuds/lunarlychallenged
Summary: Your friendship with Jared had always relied on the advice you gave him to make him more bearable, but some inconvenient feelings made you think maybe nothing about him needed to change.





	Negatives

There were many good things about Jared Kleinman. There had to be; you would never have become his friend in the first place if he was a complete tool all the time. Even so, there were many bad things about him, and you did not hesitate to tell him about the more preventable ones.

“Jesus Christ, Kleinman,” you would snap on the way to math class. “Have I not told you a billion times that only idiots walk down the middle of the hallway?” Some days he would throw himself into your side, asking if that was far enough out of the way., Other days, he would put a little more swagger into his walk, making it impossible for anybody to avoid bumping into him.

“If you chew on the pencil that I am letting you borrow,” you would say in a low voice, “I will never give you anything else, ever. Not a pencil to borrow; not a drink at a party; not a present on your birthday.” He would freeze, pencil halfway to his open mouth, and lower it with a good-natured pout.

“Kleinman, it doesn’t matter how hot you think you are. If you wear everything you eat all over your face, nobody will want to make out with you.” He would snatch the napkin you threw out of the air, maybe opening his mouth to show you half chewed food, but always wiping away the excess. You thought that messy eating was repulsive, and though he teased you about it, he always made sure to clean up before you could get too uncomfortable.

It wasn’t that you were cruel. Jared knew that your intentions were good, and he never had a problem with doing the same for you. After all, if nobody else would tell you what bugged them about you, it was up to the two of you to make each other more bearable. You were both in the final stretch of senior year, and though you were lucky enough to have chosen the same college, you were both convinced that college would be different. It had to be better than high school, and for that to happen, you each had to make yourselves a little easier to swallow.

(“My personality isn’t the only thing that people are going to be swallowing.”

“Jared, oh my God.”)

So, really, it was good to tell each other what could be easily fixed. That’s what friends are supposed to do, after all. Sometimes the fixes are harder to face, but they still have to be said. The harder conversations happened when something you appreciated wasn’t something that anybody else appreciated.

“Jared,” you said gently. He was standing by the pencil sharpener, but instead of cranking the lever, he just looked at the pencil that stuck out of the hole. “Kleinman, what’s up?”

“Nothing,” he said lightly. He grabbed for the lever with a mildly shaky hand, but you grabbed for his hand.

You knew why he was upset. You hadn’t been in the library when one of the other boys shredded Jared’s English paper, but everybody knew what had happened. He had laughed when the boy closed the tab his paper was on without saving. Jared’s mouth was often faster than his conscience, and though it could be funny, he had an unfortunate streak of unintentional cruelty.

The boy, angry at his own loss, had torn Jared’s paper into pieces just as the bell rang. There was no time to print off a new one, so Jared had to go to class empty-handed.

“I’m really sorry,” you said.

He grinned, lopsided and miserable. “Any tips?”

You tried to tell him the obvious: to keep his mouth shut. Your mouth slammed shut with an audible click, however, when you looked at him. There was a tightness in your chest; almost an ache. Maybe it was the lighting. Maybe it was the unusual way his eyes were solemn and his lips cut an earnest line across his face. Maybe it was the way he was looking at you; a little desperate, a little vulnerable, and very trusting. Maybe it was just that he was Jared, and you were Y/N, and everything about that was perfect.

Whatever it was, you tried to play it off by clapping a hand against his shoulder and squeezing it. The squeeze did not change a thing; you just became conscious of how nice his arms were. No, no, no. “Nope. No tips. You were perfect.”

He blinked at you, taken aback, before giving a snort of laughter. “Duh. I’m always perfect.”

You smiled back, a little shaken. God, he really was perfect. He was awful, and he was infuriating, and he was such a tool sometimes, and he was totally perfect.

 

 

Jared’s family was relatively well off. Not wealthy, necessarily, but the Kleinmans had enough money to get Jared unnecessarily expensive clothes, pay for his car insurance, and pay for his college education in the coming years. They had raised their son in a high quality, polished household, so it only stood to reason that Jared loved cheap, low quality things.

The two of you went out to eat at least once a week, always to greasy diners or the bowling alley. A few weeks after the incident with the English paper, the two of you sat side by side in one of the bowling alley booths, wearing geeky shoes and eating pizza literally dripping with grease.

You had been having a rough couple of weeks, and Jared had noticed. It wasn’t hard because of homework, or annoying classmates, or difficulty at home. The trouble was that, ever since that conversation with Jared at the pencil sharpener, you hadn’t been able to shake that heavy feeling when you looked at him. 

It wasn’t that you had forgotten how imperfect he was. He made inappropriate jokes all the time, even when you needed him to be serious. He was mean when you were vulnerable. He was messy, and he was irresponsible, and he was inconsiderate. You knew that he wasn’t perfect, but when you looked at him, it felt like you were looking at the stars. You felt very small, sort of insignificant, and you wouldn’t have changed a single thing.

You knew that he was imperfect, and that was its own sort of perfection. He was over the top, but doing too much was his way of reaching out. He was too loud, too annoying, too much, so he could see if anybody would take the hand he left open.

Maybe, if he would have it, you would take that hand.

“Y/N?” Jared waved a hand in front of your face, breaking your train of thought. You had been lost in thought, not realizing that you had been gazing at his face for minutes on end. He smirked at you, misunderstanding the reason. “What, is there something on my face?”

Had you been thinking clearly, you would have latched on to that excuse. You would have seen it as a lifeline, allowing you to get away with minutes of enamoured gazing. After all, though he had somehow managed to stay clean, you had a stream of grease inching its way down your elbow. He would have believed you.  
  
For better or for worse, you were not thinking clearly. Your eyes were still catching on the patch of stubble by his left ear that he had missed while shaving, the way his eyebrows had raised in delighted expectation, the smooth pink of his miraculously clean lips.

“No,” you said absently. “No, that’s the problem.”

You both startled. You were horrified, but Jared was caught somewhere between amused and confused. “It’s a problem that there’s nothing on my face?”

Your face heated. It went so warm, so fast, that it almost hurt. “Yes?”

You could almost see the gears turning behind his eyes. Searching for a sex joke, probably, but his confusion was so great that nothing seemed to be coming to him. “Why?”

“Because,” you said, heart roaring in your ears, “if you don’t wear everything you’re eating on your face, somebody might want to make out with you.”

He grinned, but there was nothing smug about it. Had he been smug, you might have gotten embarrassed. Instead, there was a beam of hope lighting his face. “What’s so bad about that?”

“I don’t remember,” you said, and turned so you could put a hand around his neck and drag his face to yours. There was nothing perfect about the way you kissed him. It was sloppy. He couldn’t get his smile under control, there was no comfortable way to lean into each other in the small booth, and his glasses kept bumping against your face. In short, it was awkward, graceless, and the best thing you had ever done.

When you pulled away, his glasses were foggy. “You’re right. I should always have something on my face. Can’t risk having that happen again.”

“Absolutely,” you said, a little breathless. “Its hazardous. You’ll never make it through college like this.”

He leaned forward to give you another quick kiss. “Then again, it doesn’t have to be food on my face -”

“Don’t,” you warned.

“You just said whatever I was eating -”

“Kleinman.”

“So if I was eating you ou-”

You dragged his lips back to yours, cutting him off. Maybe he couldn’t filter his words, but you certainly could. In between kisses, you could feel him giving little huffs of laughter, but he didn’t try to pull away. Finally, one thing you wouldn’t have to give him tips on.


End file.
